What do you all think about it, do you use it? I’ve had Ubuntu installed for the last year as dual boot (Windows being my main OS), but i haven’t really used it that much.

But i think it’s interface is beautiful, it is really fast, i can do all of my web dev work on Linux and more and more games are coming to Linux (thanks Valve, Dota is already here! ) and OpenOffice is good nowadays. For me personally – the only reason why i am still using Windows is because ‘i am used to it’, but i am seriously thinking about making a permanent switch to Linux.

There aren’t drawbacks of using Linux (Ubuntu) any more, on the contrary, you don’t have to spend 10 days anymore just to install it and mess with all drivers, ubuntu has a really nice and simple install, it’s free and i can do anything that i would do on Windows.

Only thing that comes to mind is that i have to open up a PSD occasionally, but there is no Photoshop for Linux

While my main machine is a Mac, I’m on Ubuntu nearly daily when I’m in one of the university’s computer rooms. For me, the unix ‘under the hood’ is what makes the difference. Firefox is quite the same, but the commandline is vastly different. I very much like how everything is right at your fingertips from the moment you install the system – from Python to SSH and from bash to netcat. It’s just there

I get that these are not reasons that might convince the average user, but for me that’s what tips the scales when the BIOS prompts me if I would like to boot into Windows or Ubuntu.

As for your specific points: I agree that it’s a bit inconvenient that there’s no Adobe software available – you could consider to dualboot to Windows in those cases when you really do need Photoshop, though. It’s all a matter of getting used to it, I guess.

The lack of Photoshop and a decent html/css IDE is the main point why i dont use ubuntu either. I had Fedora as my only OS when i worked as a C/C++ dev, but now I just cant seem to find the right replacement soft for Adobe suite. Now that google web designer appears to be targeting to fill that gap, i would just need a photoshop replacement.

I absolutely love Linux.. it’s like a fine wine, there are many types.. good ones, bad ones. Mac users also like linux, because after all they share a lot of DNA and a lot of the controls are already familiar.

Here are my favorite free ones:

Mageia (robust OS, formerly Mandriva, formerly Mandrake)

OpenSUSE (beautiful)

Fedora (from RedHat)

Ubuntu (lightweight)

There are a couple of essentials with each installation I do:

VirtualBox.. machines can be copied from machine to machine, so this is awesome to just copy my dev environment from my Windows machine, to my Mac or onto my Linux box.. and back again

Crossover Office.. not to be confused with Open Office, it’s used for installing and running Windows apps (even Photoshop) directly on the native Linux desktop.. Costs about $60 though

Chrome, Firefox, Opera (you won’t find Safari.. but you will find Konqueror, from which Safari was originally based

The major difference between the operating systems is the way they install things.. I prefer the RPM style of Mageia and Fedora.. it’s a lot like Windows installations, you run a single file and tell it to install.. then it installs

Oh yeah, I forgot the Desktop managers.. you have Gnome (which is like Mac with a nice twist) and there is also KDE (which Windows users might prefer).. other desktop managers aren’t worth my time really, those are the 2 major ones and they completely control the way your desktop looks and acts.